


Lonely Spots He Shares With You

by Baebadook



Series: Two (2) Halves of One (1) Idiot [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 3k words of pure self indulgence, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Coming Out, Gen, Implied Recreational Drug Use, Season 3 Spoilers, aw yis gimme that mlm wlw solidarity, maybe sorta kinda implied/pre stoncy? 👀, obviously no romance between the two of them, one (1) use of the q-slur, take notes dungle bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 10:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19766479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baebadook/pseuds/Baebadook
Summary: Robin's other eyebrow has slowly started to climb up next to the first one while he speaks, and honestly in any other situation seeing Robin so genuinely incredulous would've made Steve laugh. Instead he just feels kinda sick, and buzzing with anxiety. He wonders if this is how she had felt moments ago; fidgety and almost bursting at the seams."But you like girls." She states, not unlike the remark he had made about Tammy earlier. He smiles despite himself, if only for a moment."I do, yeah. But...guys are nice, too."





	Lonely Spots He Shares With You

**Author's Note:**

> Some season 3 spoilers beyond, proceed with caution!
> 
> Steve is bi, the Duffer Brothers are cowards, and Robin and Steve are the greatest two (2) halves of one (1) whole awkward idiot.
> 
> Title is from the song Adult Education by Hall & Oates.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Steve presses his head back on to the chilled surface of the stall divider behind him, and there’s a dull pain ebbing there, just underneath the blurred haze of his racing thoughts and whatever might’ve been in that needle the Russians shoved into his neck. That “doctor” clearly needed to improve his bedside manor. And yeah, no way that thing was sterile- his head’s probably gonna fall right off his shoulders the next day. It definitely hurt like hell and was no doubt bruising, but it’s not like he can see that exactly, when his entire body feels like Rocky Balboa’s personal punching bag. It’s shocking he can walk and move at all, frankly.

The tile of the bathroom floor cools his skin, seeping through the thin silken fabric of his ridiculous uniform shorts and it grounds him back in the moment.

Robin sits across from him, fingers lightly tracing the moulding that’s between the gaudy tile walls and she can’t quite meet his gaze. After all the teasing of Tammy Thompson’s singing skills and the laughter had died down they had fallen into silence, only interrupted by the occasional rumble of music or sound effects from the Back to the Present movie going next door. 

Dustin and Erica are going to be so pissed if they realize that they’re gone, but he doesn’t really want to move from his spot. Not with his injuries.  _ Especially  _ not when Robin is glancing at him like she’s still waiting for him to say something nasty or cruel to her.

He would never.

_ Old Steve might’ve _ , his mind unhelpfully supplies for him, and he fights off the grimace he feels as a response. It’s not entirely wrong either, is the thing. “King Steve” could’ve said something; blasted it across the high school populace, called her names while Tommy H and Carol cackled and leered behind him. It makes him think of two years ago. Him pushing at Jonathan and calling him queer. To barb, to hurt, all in the name of fitting in. Of feeling like he belonged among them. Hiding away his true self behind money and popularity and vapid words. His stomach turns, and this time not because of the fluorescent lights.

He’s grown, he’s a different person now. Someone to be proud of- or that’s what he hopes anyways.

The DeLorean roars to life, muffled by the walls between them, but his head hurts regardless. Billy might not have given him a concussion with a plate but he can’t really claim the same this time around.

“Robin.” He starts, and that worry spreads and coils tight around his heart, just like the vines in the tunnels last year. He shifts in place, legs buzzing and tingling from their cramped position. Robin’s attention snaps to him when he speaks, and he hesitates. He doesn’t quite know what to do with it now that he has it.

He’s done this once before, with Nancy. Before their relationship had ended. Graciously, he managed to fall for the most forward thinking and badass woman on the planet Earth so she took it in stride, hugged him tight, and told him that she didn’t think any less of him for it. That he was brave. It was also one of the few times he’d said it out loud to himself without recoiling. Trying to stamp it down or hide it away like he’d done for so long.

He supposed in a way he told Josh Coleman as well, just not in as many words. They were a bit preoccupied with shoving their tongues in each other’s mouths in the bathroom of Becca Moore’s 17th birthday bash.

Hiding away your feelings was just the Harrington way, he supposes. He doesn’t want it to be like that anymore.

So something like this should be less stress-inducing, especially since Robin was like him. It wasn’t the same circumstance or anything, but still. He’d been working with her for several months without even knowing they shared a connection like this. It was exciting and scary at the same time. He still felt the nerves throughout his body- moving in his fingertips all the way down to his toes.

Bravery comes in many forms. It could be slicing your palms to bait out a monster, or walking into a foreign world to save your son. Navigating halls that are crawling with Demodogs. Closing a gate to another dimension all by yourself.

Robin is one of the bravest people he knows. Has to be, to decode Russian codes and follow him down into secret labs and throw herself headlong into danger for a group of people she doesn’t even know from Adam. To open up to him in the way that she has; knowing the risks that come with it. And he had never considered himself to be brave- quite the opposite in fact. But he thinks he can spare some for her, right now. It’s that thought that has him opening his mouth, breath shaky as he inhales.

“It’s okay,” he says, sounding too loud against the sudden silence of the room. “I mean, I get it. That feeling.”

His heart thumps hard against his rib cage, and he licks at his too-dry lips. What he wouldn’t give to flee out of the room and back to the water fountain, but Robin’s eyes hold him there. Pins him to the stall with her scrutinizing stare.

“You do?” She asks, not without some skepticism, and Steve can’t help but shrug his shoulders up and down even though that hurts, too.

“Yeah. I do.”

How in the world he kept getting into these kind of situations, he’d never know. Except that he did know, actually, and that certain something was Dustin Henderson. He had an inability to say no when it came to that little shit’s toothy smile, that much is for sure. He pulled him into his schemes like gravity. The sun orbiting the earth, or whatever. He always got that confused.

He hadn’t expected to spend his days looking for Russian spies or getting trapped in an elevator for hours on end. Certainly not pouring out his feelings to his coworker on the dirty bathroom floor of the cinema, either.

She’s looking at him expectantly, an eyebrow raised. He sighs and crosses his legs. Angles himself until he’s fully facing her and looking her in the eye.

“I’m not making this up to make you feel better or anything, I swear. I guess- just. I guess part of the reason I hung around Tommy so long was because I wanted him to notice me. I mean, I wanted to stay popular and go to his parties and all that other dumb shit too, but. I also wanted him to look at me. The way Tammy looked at me, apparently.” The sentence ends in a whisper, even though they’re blissfully alone in this space.

Steve can recall the moments; the intimate feeling of passing a joint back and forth at the quarry in his parked car, faint music humming through his speakers. The feeling that filled his chest when Tommy included him in things, nudged him, grinned at him. Freckles dotting his face like the stars in the sky. His smiles felt like standing in a ray of the sun. Perhaps it had been a crush, or an infatuation; it wasn’t love. At least, not the kind he had moved on to feel for Nancy after the fact.

Robin's other eyebrow has slowly started to climb up next to the first one while he speaks, and honestly in any other situation seeing Robin so genuinely incredulous would've made him laugh. Instead he just feels kinda sick, and buzzing with anxiety. He wonders if this is how she had felt moments ago; fidgety and almost bursting at the seams.

"But you like girls." She states, not unlike the remark he had made about Tammy earlier. He smiles despite himself, if only for a moment.

"I do, yeah. But...guys are nice, too."

A pause.

A big pause.

“Holy shit.” She’s looking at him like she’s never seen him properly before, and he supposes that that sentiment is accurate considering their nonexistent high school history. He laughs, sharp and sudden. Talk about  déjà vu.

“Yeah, holy shit.” He parrots. 

“Why didn’t you say so earlier!? And Tommy H?  _ Tommy H _ ? What a douchecanoe! I can’t believe this!” She tilts forward in a feeble attempt to swat at his arm and misses the mark by a long shot, almost losing her balance in the process.

“Yeah yeah, I know. What is it with us and Ts, huh? T and T.”

“Tee-tees.” She wheezes out. And then they’re laughing all over again like it was the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. All that tension coiled within him unfurls until he’s clutching onto her and giggling until his eyes water. He kind’ve wishes he had a blunt right now; if this was her after an injection of god knows what, she’d probably be an entertaining stoner.

It feels incredible to have another person to share these things with. Having somebody else to relate to makes things seem just a little less daunting.

Once they reign in their giggle spree for the second time that day, he wipes a stray tear away from the corner of his good eye while Robin regards him with a curious look.

“So did you and Tommy H. ever…?” She trails off, as if unsure how to finish the sentence and he snorts.

“Nah.” He had imagined what it would have been like in the past, to kiss him in the darkness of a closet or the safety of his locked room. Now when he thought back on it he only felt revulsion for ever chasing after the dickweed in the first place. “He was far too wrapped up in Carol. Plus he probably would’ve punched my lights out if I ever had tried anything, so.” He brings up his arms in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. “C’est la vie, and all that. His loss.”

“Yeah!” She says, suddenly straightening up fast enough that she wobbles a bit, “you deserve better than that asshole, anyhow.”

“Damn straight. Well,” he sends her a significant look and she snorts loudly.

“That was probably the corniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, I love it.”

“You’re welcome. So how about you, huh? Have you ever kissed any girls?” He exaggeratedly wriggles his eyebrows at her until she shoves him, successfully this time too. “Ow, watch the arm.”

“Sorry.” She doesn’t sound it. She schooches across the dirty bathroom floor and he wrinkles his nose, thankful at the very least that it’s the girls room they had ran into. She maneuvers next to him until their side by side and their knees touch. It was already a squeeze to sit across from each other, but she looks so pleased with herself that he doesn’t fuss about it.

“Actually yeah. Just once though. It was at band camp a few summers ago.” Robin’s smile is soft, obviously calling forth the fond memory.

He’s not surprised in the least.

“Of course it was, I wouldn’t expect any less. It’s always camp, isn’t it?”

“What can I say? It’s a great time.” 

“So I keep hearing- maybe I need to start going, then.”

She lets out another snort. “Yeah, right. That would require an instrument. And not to mention, the talent to play it.”

“Uh, ouch? You don’t know me- I could be  _ great _ at something. Like...the triangle. That’s a thing, right?”

“Sure, you keep telling yourself that. Also, are you forgetting the board Harrington? I don’t see your score improving any further at camp; girls  _ or _ boys.”

Hit to his ego aside, her even just saying  _ or boys _ brought a smile to his face. “So are you gonna keep busting my balls or are you gonna tell me about this girl you kissed?” 

Robin honest-to-god flushes slightly at that, the red tinge mixing with her freckles. It’s a pretty damn adorable sight. He’s really glad they had seemed to go easy on her, save for the faint bruise dashed across her cheek.

“Okay, fine. So her name was Amber, and we had kinda been flirting...ish? For a few days. This one day we were alone in our dorms practising and one thing lead to another, and. I don’t know. We just kissed. I can’t even remember who leaned in first honestly, it’s a little fuzzy.”

Steve whoops happily, grinning as he gives her shoulder a shake. “Hell yeah, thata girl! So? How was it?” She scowls and slaps his hands away, but he can see the tilt to the edge of her lips.

“I dunno: it was nice.” Her face is starting to match the shade of Max’s hair actually- that’s impressive.

He waits, and shakes his head expectantly when she neglects to elaborate any further. “ _ And _ ?” He draws out. He’s found, over the past few months, that the key to getting something out of Robin was to just annoy the shit out of her. If he bugged her persistently and incessantly enough her resolve would just up and snap like a waffle cone. It was a gift.

Of course he’d drop it if she wanted him to, but. He kinda got the idea that she was excited to enthuse about this to somebody.

“And what? I don’t know! As far as kisses go it was good, I guess? I mean it was just a peck, like you’d give your nana or something.”

“Hey, there’s nothin’ wrong with that. We all gotta start somewhere right?” He definitely had some awkward kisses in his life. At least she had hit the mouth on the first try, instead of missing and somehow getting the ear. The  _ ear _ . He didn’t leave his room for a week.

“I guess so. She was wearing root beer lip balm. Her hair was super soft.” She drew her legs up to her chest and draped her arms across her knees, expression downright  _ dreamy _ as she stares off into nowhere in particular. The wall, really, considering their positions.

“Did you score her phone number or anything?”

“Huh?” She looks back up to him, apparently coming back down to Earth. “Oh. Nah, we parted ways when camp came to an end. She lives out of state so the odds of keeping up a relationship was pretty slim to none. I don’t mind.”

He nods. “Well, there’s plenty of fish and all that; here’s to hoping for more.” Obviously the pool for that sort of thing was considerably smaller in Bumfuck Indiana, but he didn’t think it was impossible. Besides, she could always move off somewhere and find a nice girlfriend in Cali or something.

“I’ll cheers to that.” They pretend to clink invisible glasses, because they’re  _ that _ level of dork.

They went quiet again, comfortable in their shared silence. He could hear faint music coming from next door and figures that the movie is finally over. Meaning it’ll probably only take a few minutes for the kids to find them and give them hell for up and vanishing. Whatever- they were having a moment, okay, so they could just deal with it. The floor was cold and hard and he was probably gonna lose a limb due to all the germs crawling across it, but it was  _ worth it _ . He reaches out to pat her knee gently.

“Thanks for telling me, Robin.” He says. It means a lot, knowing that she trusts him enough to confess it to him. He trusts her. She places her head on his shoulder, and he tilts his until they touch.

“Right back at you, Dingus.”

* * *

El flips a car and saves their asses, because of course she does. And then Jonathan’s cutting open her leg with a heated knife and she’s pulling a weird slug creature out of the wound and what he wouldn’t give to have some normal-ass friends for once in his goddamn life.

Then, thankfully, the adults arrive. Like the actual, real, honest-to-god Adults. And they’re safe; everyone is safe. At least for the moment.

The kids look less surprised to see him there, this time around. Which is nice, if not worrying at the same time, all things considered. Lucas actually hugs him and he doesn’t cry at that. Not even a little bit. Joyce dotes over him and his injuries and he really does want to cry.

And then Nancy Wheeler advances on him like the hounds of hell are on her heels, which will never stop being anything but terrifying honestly, especially when she’s swinging around a shotgun- and she pulls him into a tight hug. And his body hurts, but his heart doesn’t.

Maybe he has grown up.

Jonathan moves up next to her, hands tucked in his pants. He looks good. The both of them look good.

“Hey, man.” He says.

“Hey yourself, Jonathan. I dig the hair- it suits you.” He’s unfortunately had seen a distinct lack of the two of them around Scoops ever since they all got jobs, other than the occasional trip to drop of the kids for a while. If they survived this time, he wanted to change that. They could make time in their schedules to hang out and shoot the shit. Maybe see a movie or something. It’d be nice to hang out with people that were actually his age for a change.

It sounded like a damn good plan if you ask him.

“Oh, thanks.” He gives him one of those small, rare smiles, “We’re glad you’re okay.”

Steve grins back. “I’m a little banged up, but what else is new? I’m glad you n’ the kids are safe too.”

Jonathan seems to deliberate something for a moment, and then he hugs him. Jonathan hugs him. Which is what he’s surprised about most honestly. He always had seemed like a selected-affection kind of guy, and he’s kind’ve shocked that he’s included in that small group at all.

“Your cologne smells really nice.” Is all he can think to say, because it’s a bit awkward and it really does smell nice and maybe that questionable concussion is affecting his brain to mouth filter too. This day could not get  _ any _ weirder. He can feel Jonathan laugh softly against him.

Robin watches the entire exchange with a sort of knowing smugness to her face when they separate, and he doesn’t like that at all. That does not bode well for him. Eventually, Nancy and Jonathan move over to talk to Chief Hopper and it’s just the two of them once again.

“Interesting, very interesting Harrington.” She intones. He doesn’t like that one bit, either.

“It’s not like that.” He says, before she gets any ideas, and he can feel the blush that’s started blooming on his cheeks. For once he’s thankful that he looks like a human pinata. He doesn’t really even know what “that” would be, strictly speaking. Or what she found so interesting in the first place. Robin gives him a long look that means she doesn’t buy it and he pointedly ignores it.

“Whatever you say, Dingus.” She throws an arm around his shoulder, and they share a smile. A thought pops into his mind.

“Hey Robin?” He asks, before he can change his mind.

“Yes Steve?”

“Are we friends now?” It’s funny- until a few days ago, he wouldn't have classified them as such. They were coworkers, or acquaintances. Even if he had, he wasn’t sure that the sentiment would’ve been shared back.

But now, things are different. Fighting Russians and interdimensional creatures tends to bring people together like that.

She shakes her head slightly, looking amused. “By now I think that’s kind of a given. I seem to be stuck with you, unfortunately.”

“Mmm, no, I would say it’s the other way around but sure.” He can’t keep the grin off his face. 

Before he got tangled in all of this mess, he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been lonely. Now, he has an entire group of friends- or one might even hazard to say  _ family _ , that genuinely cares for his well being. As well as a new friend. And his heart feels warm and full.

Turning around and going back into Mrs. Byers’ house might’ve been the best decision he’s ever made.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read this, blease come scream with me about season 3 @ baebadook.tumblr.com!!!


End file.
